The institutional arrangements for providing official export credit support differ widely from country to country. The export credit agency itself can be a department within a ministry, an independent governmental agency, or even a private firm operating under instruction from, and for the account of, the government. Of the cases studied here, the Federal Republic of Germany and the Netherlands conduct their export credit insurance programs through private companies (Hermes and NCM). In most cases, agency activity is subject to ministerial, and usually interministerial, guidance and review. Throughout this paper, the convention is adopted of referring to the activities, policy stance, and financial position of the agency. It should be understood that the agencies have varying degrees of independence in these matters and that, where the agency is a private firm, the reference is exclusively to its government-mandated business. The term “governmental authorities” is used to refer to the ministry or ministries under whose guidance the agency operates or that are represented on its Board of Directors.

In each Paris Club Agreed Minute a cutoff date is established, and loans contracted after that date are not subject to the rescheduling. During a series of reschedulings, the original cutoff date can be maintained, thus protecting new credits, or the cutoff date can be advanced, thus subjecting new credits to rescheduling.

The discussion here is couched largely in terms of policies on guarantees and insurance, that is, “cover” policies, and the associated policy instruments. For those agencies that also provide direct export credits (see “Instruments of Export Credit Cover Policy,” below), the stance on direct credits is generally in line with that on cover, although the instrumentation may differ.

The present study does not encompass the activities of either the Canadian Wheat Board or the United States Commodity Credit Corporation. Credits granted by the latter are, however, included in the BIS/OECD statistics on officially supported export credits.

The prior premium schedule did not differentiate by country, and included all private borrowers in one category. Under the new schedule, exposure fees will be based on three factors: the risk category of the country; the class of buyer (sovereign borrowers or guarantors; parastatals, banks; and highly creditworthy private firms, and all other borrowers); and the term of the transaction.

The term ‘“commitments” refers to agencies’ outstanding credits and guarantees/insurance, including both principal and interest and regardless of whether the goods have yet been shipped or received, plus contingent obligations to provide such credits or cover.

While the OECD data are published jointly with data provided by the Bank for International Settlements in the series “Statistics on External Indebtedness: Bank and Trade-Related Nonbank External Claims on Individual Borrowing Countries and Territories,” the OECD is solely responsible for the export credit data in that series.

In addition to the efforts being made by the OECD and the Berne Union, the International Compilers’ Working Group on External Debt Statistics—with the participation of the BIS, the OECD, the Berne Union, the Fund, and the World Bank—has continued its work on the construction of a framework for external debt statistics and the resolution of methodological and technical issues.

Actually, most agencies’ policies specify that in making the claims payment they will use the rate specified in the contract or the current exchange rate, whichever gives the smaller claims payment. Therefore, in practice, agencies are carrying on their books their maximum possible exposure.

It should be noted that when agencies refinance, rather than reschedule, they generally do not report a claims payment. Furthermore, if a claim had been paid before the restructuring was agreed, the agency would record a recovery at the time the refinancing loan was made. In the discussion here, the staff attempts to abstract from this complication in reporting practices and treat these cases as if the more standard practice were employed.

However, one of the agencies said that it would have adopted a more open cover policy following the 1986 Paris Club agreement if the cutoff date applying to the 1983 rescheduling of private sector debt had been applied to public debt as well. That creditor had made substantial disbursements to the Mexican public sector since 1983 on the understanding that the same cutoff date would be agreed in any subsequent reschedulings.

The only exception is EID/MITI, which reports U.S. dollar export credits on an underlying loan basis. The BIS/OECD and Berne Union treat these credits in the same way as numbers reported on a commitment currency basis, and the staff has done likewise in its exchange rate adjustment.

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